| name | vmware-avi |
| description | Use this skill whenever the user mentions load balancing, ingress, virtual services, pool members, AVI, NSX ALB, AKO, or application delivery in a VMware/NSX ALB or Tanzu/vSphere Kubernetes context. Directly handles: virtual service listing and enable/disable, pool member drain/enable, SSL certificate expiry checks, analytics and error logs, service engine health, AKO pod troubleshooting, AKO Helm config management, Ingress annotation validation, K8s-to-Controller sync diagnostics, and multi-cluster AKO overview. Always use it for "virtual service", "pool member", "AKO status", "AKO logs", "ingress diagnose", "ssl expiry", "load balancer", "NSX ALB", "AVI controller", "AKO sync", or "负载均衡" tasks. Do NOT use to set up or configure nginx/HAProxy/Traefik from scratch — those are not AVI tasks. For VM lifecycle use vmware-aiops, for NSX networking use vmware-nsx, for Kubernetes cluster lifecycle (Supervisor/TKC) use vmware-vks.
|
| installer | {"kind":"uv","package":"vmware-avi"} |
| argument-hint | [vs-name, ako command, or describe your task] |
| allowed-tools | ["Bash"] |
| metadata | {"openclaw":{"requires":{"env":["VMWARE_AVI_CONFIG"],"bins":["vmware-avi"],"config":["~/.vmware-avi/config.yaml","~/.vmware-avi/.env"]},"optional":{"env":["VMWARE_<CONTROLLER>_PASSWORD","KUBECONFIG","VMWARE_READ_ONLY","VMWARE_AVI_READ_ONLY","VMWARE_AUDIT_APPROVED_BY"],"bins":["vmware-policy","kubectl","helm"]},"primaryEnv":"VMWARE_AVI_CONFIG","homepage":"https://github.com/zw008/VMware-AVI","emoji":"🔀","os":["macos","linux"]}} |
| compatibility | vmware-policy auto-installed as Python dependency (provides @vmware_tool decorator and audit logging). All write operations audited to ~/.vmware/audit.db. AVI Controller operations require avisdk and a per-controller password env var in ~/.vmware-avi/.env following the pattern <CONTROLLER_NAME_UPPER>_PASSWORD (e.g., controller "prod-avi" → PROD_AVI_PASSWORD). AKO operations require kubectl and a valid kubeconfig (default ~/.kube/config or KUBECONFIG env var). Kubeconfig is read-only — this skill does not modify kubeconfig files.
|
VMware AVI
Disclaimer: This is a community-maintained open-source project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by VMware, Inc. or Broadcom Inc. "VMware", "NSX", and "AVI" are trademarks of Broadcom. Source code is publicly auditable at github.com/zw008/VMware-AVI under the MIT license.
AVI (NSX Advanced Load Balancer) application delivery and AKO Kubernetes operations — 28 MCP tools.
Dual mode: Traditional AVI Controller management + AKO K8s operations in one skill.
Family: vmware-aiops (VM lifecycle), vmware-monitor (inventory/health), vmware-storage (iSCSI/vSAN), vmware-vks (Tanzu Kubernetes), vmware-nsx (NSX networking), vmware-nsx-security (DFW/firewall), vmware-aria (metrics/alerts/capacity), vmware-harden (compliance baselines).
| vmware-pilot (workflow orchestration) | vmware-policy (audit/policy)
What This Skill Does
| Category | Tools | Count | Read or Write |
|---|
| Virtual Service | list, status, enable/disable | 3 | 2R / 1W |
| Pool Member | pool discovery, member list, enable/disable member (drain/restore traffic) | 4 | 2R / 2W |
| SSL Certificate | list, expiry check | 2 | 2R |
| Analytics | VS metrics overview, request error logs | 2 | 2R |
| Service Engine | list, health check | 2 | 2R |
| AKO Pod Ops | status, logs, restart, version info | 4 | 3R / 1W |
| AKO Config | values.yaml view, Helm diff, Helm upgrade | 3 | 2R / 1W |
| Ingress Diagnostics | annotation validation, VS mapping, error diagnosis (with fix recommendations) | 3 | 3R |
| Sync Diagnostics | K8s-Controller comparison, inconsistency list, force resync | 3 | 2R / 1W |
| Multi-cluster | cross-cluster AKO cluster list, AMKO status | 2 | 2R |
Total: 28 tools (22 read + 6 write)
Quick Install
uv tool install vmware-avi
vmware-avi doctor
When to Use This Skill
- List, enable, or disable virtual services on AVI Controller
- Add, remove, drain, or restore pool members (maintenance windows, rolling deployments)
- Check SSL certificate expiry across all virtual services
- View VS analytics — throughput, latency, error rates, request logs
- Check service engine status (inventory-based) and per-SE VS placement counts
- Troubleshoot AKO pods — status, logs, restarts
- Manage AKO Helm configuration — view, diff, upgrade values.yaml
- Validate Ingress annotations and diagnose why a VS wasn't created as expected
- Detect sync drift between K8s resources and AVI Controller objects
- Get a cross-cluster view of AKO deployments and AMKO status
Use companion skills for:
- VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops →
vmware-aiops
- NSX segments, gateways, NAT →
vmware-nsx
- DFW firewall rules, security groups →
vmware-nsx-security
- K8s cluster lifecycle (Supervisor, TKC) →
vmware-vks
- Read-only vSphere monitoring →
vmware-monitor
Related Skills — Skill Routing
| User Intent | Recommended Skill |
|---|
| Load balancer, VS, pool, AVI, ALB, AKO | vmware-avi ← this skill |
| VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops | vmware-aiops (uv tool install vmware-aiops) |
| Read-only vSphere monitoring | vmware-monitor (uv tool install vmware-monitor) |
| Storage: iSCSI, vSAN, datastores | vmware-storage (uv tool install vmware-storage) |
| NSX networking: segments, gateways, NAT | vmware-nsx (uv tool install vmware-nsx-mgmt) |
| NSX security: DFW rules, security groups | vmware-nsx-security (uv tool install vmware-nsx-security) |
| Tanzu Kubernetes (Supervisor/TKC) | vmware-vks (uv tool install vmware-vks) |
| Aria Ops: metrics, alerts, capacity | vmware-aria (uv tool install vmware-aria) |
| Multi-step workflows with approval | vmware-pilot |
| Compliance baselines (CIS / 等保 / PCI-DSS), drift detection, LLM remediation advisor | vmware-harden (uv tool install vmware-harden) |
| Audit log query | vmware-policy (vmware-audit CLI) |
Common Workflows
Maintenance Window — Drain a Pool Member
Pre-flight (judgment — affects live traffic):
- Capacity check: pool must have ≥ 2 healthy members. Disabling the only-other-healthy member is a self-DoS. Verify with
pool members my-pool first.
- Connection persistence: if VS uses session persistence (cookie/source-IP), existing sessions stay pinned to the disabled member until they expire. "Drain" is not instant — 5-30 min depending on persistence TTL.
- Long-lived connections: WebSocket/streaming sessions can hold for hours. Decide upfront: hard-disconnect (faster, user-visible) or wait (slower, transparent).
- Observability: enable analytics on the VS BEFORE disabling — you need the baseline to detect degradation.
Steps:
pool members my-pool → confirm ≥ 2 healthy members and identify session persistence configpool disable my-pool <server-ip> (graceful drain — new connections stop, existing finish)analytics my-vs --duration 15m → watch active connection count to the drained member trend toward zero- Perform maintenance only after active connections = 0 (or you've decided to hard-disconnect)
pool enable my-pool <server-ip> → re-enable- Verify before declaring success: health monitor passes (typically 30-90 sec) AND new connections are landing on the member (analytics drill-down)
AKO Ingress Not Creating VS
Judgment: this is a layered failure — figure out which layer broke before randomly probing. AKO is a controller; like all K8s controllers, the failure modes are: (a) controller down, (b) controller running but seeing wrong inputs, (c) controller acting but Avi rejecting outputs.
ako status → controller running, recent reconciles, no panic logs? If not, fix here firstako ingress check <namespace> → required annotations present? Common miss: kubernetes.io/ingress.class, aviinfrasetting.ako.vmware.com/nameako sync status → drift between K8s state and Avi state. Drift > a few minutes usually means controller errorako ingress diagnose <ingress-name> → AKO's own diagnostic; often pinpoints the issue- If sync drifted:
ako sync diff → review what's missing on Avi side. Force resync only after you understand why drift happened — blind resync masks bugs that will recur
SSL Certificate Expiry Audit
Judgment: cert expiry is the most preventable outage in the LB world. Run this regularly, not reactively. The 30-day window is a minimum — for prod, set 60+ to allow renewal lead time.
ssl expiry --days 60 → catch certs expiring within 60 days, not 30; enterprise renewal cycles take 2-4 weeks- Cross-reference VS mapping (in output) → identify which apps are at risk; some certs may be unused (orphans, candidates for cleanup)
- Decision: certs marked
unused (no VS) → propose deletion as part of audit; certs in_use → escalate to cert team with VS list and exact expiry date
- Schedule a follow-up rescan post-renewal (not just rely on cert team confirming)
Usage Mode
| Scenario | Recommended | Why |
|---|
| Local/small models (Ollama, Qwen) | CLI | ~2K tokens vs ~8K for MCP |
| Cloud models (Claude, GPT-4o) | Either | MCP gives structured JSON I/O |
| Automated pipelines | MCP | Type-safe parameters, structured output |
| AKO troubleshooting | CLI | Interactive log tailing, Helm diff output |
MCP Tools (28 — 22 read, 6 write)
| Category | Tools | R/W |
|---|
| Virtual Service (3) | vs_list, vs_status | Read |
| vs_toggle | Write |
| Pool Member (4) | pool_list, pool_members | Read |
| pool_member_enable, pool_member_disable | Write |
| SSL Certificate (2) | ssl_list, ssl_expiry_check | Read |
| Analytics (2) | vs_analytics, vs_error_logs | Read |
| Service Engine (2) | se_list, se_health | Read |
| AKO Pod (4) | ako_status, ako_logs, ako_version | Read |
| ako_restart | Write |
| AKO Config (3) | ako_config_show, ako_config_diff | Read |
| ako_config_upgrade | Write |
| Ingress Diagnostics (3) | ako_ingress_check, ako_ingress_map, ako_ingress_diagnose | Read |
| Sync Diagnostics (3) | ako_sync_status, ako_sync_diff | Read |
| ako_sync_force | Write |
| Multi-cluster (2) | ako_clusters, ako_amko_status | Read |
Read/write split: 22 tools are read-only, 6 modify state. Write tools require double confirmation and are audit-logged.
Read-Only Mode
If a write tool listed above (vs_toggle, pool_member_enable/disable, ako_restart, ako_config_upgrade, ako_sync_force) is absent from list_tools(), this deployment is in read-only mode: VMWARE_READ_ONLY=true (or VMWARE_AVI_READ_ONLY, or read_only: true in config.yaml) withholds all 6 write tools at start-up. That is a deliberate lockdown, not a fault — do not retry, and do not look for another tool that achieves the same change. Name the operation that is blocked and say an operator must clear the switch and restart the server. Read tools are unaffected; vmware-avi doctor reports the current state and its source. Running with local or small models? See references/agent-guardrails.md.
CLI Quick Reference
vmware-avi vs list [--controller <name>]
vmware-avi vs status <vs-name>
vmware-avi vs enable <vs-name>
vmware-avi vs disable <vs-name>
vmware-avi pool members <pool-name>
vmware-avi pool enable <pool> <server-ip>
vmware-avi pool disable <pool> <server-ip>
vmware-avi ssl list
vmware-avi ssl expiry [--days 30]
vmware-avi analytics <vs-name>
vmware-avi logs <vs-name> [--since 1h]
vmware-avi se list
vmware-avi se health
vmware-avi ako status [--context <k8s-context>]
vmware-avi ako logs [--tail 100] [--since 30m]
vmware-avi ako restart
vmware-avi ako config show
vmware-avi ako config diff
vmware-avi ako config upgrade
vmware-avi ako ingress check <namespace>
vmware-avi ako ingress map
vmware-avi ako ingress diagnose <ingress-name>
vmware-avi ako sync status
vmware-avi ako sync diff
vmware-avi ako sync force
vmware-avi ako clusters
vmware-avi ako amko status
Full CLI reference: see references/cli-reference.md
Troubleshooting
"Controller unreachable" error
- Run
vmware-avi doctor to verify connectivity
- Check if the controller address and port are correct in
~/.vmware-avi/config.yaml
- For self-signed certs: set
verify_ssl: false in config.yaml (lab environments only)
AKO Pod in CrashLoopBackOff
- Check logs →
vmware-avi ako logs --tail 50
- Common causes: wrong controller IP in values.yaml, network policy blocking AKO→Controller, expired credentials
- Fix config →
vmware-avi ako config show to inspect, then vmware-avi ako config upgrade with corrected values (release auto-discovered — official installs use --generate-name; pulls the official Broadcom OCI chart oci://projects.packages.broadcom.com/ako/helm-charts/ako)
Ingress created but no VS on Controller
- Validate annotations →
vmware-avi ako ingress check <namespace>
- Check AKO logs for rejection reason →
vmware-avi ako logs --since 5m
- Run sync diff →
vmware-avi ako sync diff to see if the object is stuck
Pool member shows "down" after enable
Health monitor may still be failing. Check the actual health status on the Controller side — the member is enabled but unhealthy. Fix the backend service first, then the health status will auto-recover.
SSL expiry check shows 0 certificates
Verify the controller connection has tenant-level access. Certificates are tenant-scoped in AVI — the configured user may only see certs in their tenant.
Warning: "ran against a target that declares no environment"
Policy rules scope by environment, and a controller that declares none is treated as unknown rather than safe. Today the write still runs and logs this warning; the next major release will refuse it. Add environment: production (or staging / lab) to that controller's entry in ~/.vmware-avi/config.yaml now, and the enforcing release is a no-op for you. Read-only operations are never affected. Run vmware-audit policy to see the rules in force.
AKO sync force has no effect
Force resync triggers AKO to re-reconcile all K8s objects. If the drift persists, the issue is likely in the K8s resource definition itself (bad annotation, missing secret). Use vmware-avi ako ingress diagnose to pinpoint the root cause.
Setup
uv tool install vmware-avi
mkdir -p ~/.vmware-avi
vmware-avi init
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-avi/.env
vmware-avi doctor
All tools are automatically audited via vmware-policy. Audit logs: vmware-audit log --last 20
Supported versions: AVI Controller 22.1.x (analytics endpoint quirks fixed in v1.5.11) and 30.x. VCF 9.0 / 9.1 declared compatible (avisdk >=22.1,<31.0 covers bundled AVI). Python 3.11+. Full table: references/capabilities.md → Version Compatibility.
Full setup guide, security details, AI platform compatibility, and container/Smithery deployment: see references/setup-guide.md
Audit & Safety
All operations are automatically audited via vmware-policy (@vmware_tool decorator):
- Every tool call logged to
~/.vmware/audit.db (SQLite, framework-agnostic)
- Policy rules enforced via
~/.vmware/rules.yaml (deny rules, maintenance windows, risk levels)
- Each controller should declare
environment: in config.yaml (production / staging / lab). Policy rules scope by environment, so a controller that declares none is treated as unknown: writes against it currently run but log a warning, and the next major release will refuse them. Reads are never affected
- Destructive operations (
vs_toggle disable, pool_member_disable, ako_restart, ako_config_upgrade, ako_sync_force) require double confirmation
ako_config_upgrade defaults to --dry-run mode — user must explicitly confirm to apply- View recent operations:
vmware-audit log --last 20
License
MIT — github.com/zw008/VMware-AVI
